The International Union of Bricklayers and Allied Craftworkers (BAC) is one of the oldest trade unions in North America. The parent organization was chartered in 1865 as the Bricklayers’ International Union, making the trade’s institutional history nearly as old as the modern American industrial economy. The craft grew alongside the buildout of the country’s first generation of blast furnaces, open-hearth steel plants, cement kilns, glass melter tanks, coke batteries, and industrial boilers — the high-temperature process equipment that all required a refractory interior lining to survive operating temperatures that ranged from 1,800°F in kilns and boilers to over 3,000°F in steelmaking and glassmaking service.

Refractory masonry is the specialty branch of the trade that installs these linings. Refractory masons — organized under BAC alongside the union’s construction bricklayers, stone masons, tile setters, and pointer-cleaner-caulker classifications — set fireclay brick, silica brick, magnesia brick, high-alumina brick, and chrome-magnesite brick into the interior walls of the furnaces, boilers, kilns, ladles, and process vessels that the U.S. industrial base ran on. They installed castable refractory (a poured, hydraulically-set high-temperature concrete), gunned refractory (pneumatically sprayed), plastic refractory (rammed), and refractory ceramic fiber blanket and module.

The asbestos era

From roughly the 1930s through the late 1970s, a substantial share of the refractory materials the trade installed allegedly contained asbestos. Refractory brick was allegedly formulated with asbestos fiber to improve thermal shock resistance and reduce spalling. Refractory castable and gunning mixes allegedly used chrysotile as a reinforcing fiber that held the wet mix together during pouring, gunning, and curing. Refractory ceramic fiber blanket and module — used as back-up insulation behind the hot face brick, and as the hot face itself in lower-temperature service — was allegedly co-installed with, and in some formulations included, asbestos fiber. Insulating fire brick, refractory board, and paving block for glass tank service allegedly contained asbestos in various grades and eras.

The trade did not choose this. Members were dispatched to jobsites where these materials were specified by the plant’s refractory engineers and the manufacturer’s technical service representatives. They mixed the castable in wheelbarrows and mortar pans at the jobsite. They cut and shaped brick to fit curved furnace walls. They handled hot tear-out during outage rebuilds — often in confined, unventilated furnace interiors during turnarounds at steel mills, cement plants, refineries, and utility boilers.

Refractory rebuild work — the defining exposure

The characteristic exposure profile of the refractory-mason branch is the plant outage rebuild. Every industrial furnace requires periodic reline — anywhere from 12 months (open-hearth roofs, BOF vessels) to 5+ years (cement rotary kiln nose rings) between rebuilds. During a rebuild, BAC refractory masons enter the still-warm furnace interior, tear out the spent lining (allegedly generating substantial airborne fiber from degraded asbestos-bonded brick and dried asbestos-castable dust), clean the shell, and install new brick and monolithic refractory to the manufacturer’s specification.

Tear-out work — particularly on blast furnaces, BOF vessels, open-hearth furnaces, cement kilns, coke ovens, glass melter tanks, and industrial boilers — allegedly produced the highest fiber concentrations of any activity in the trade. The mixing and gunning of asbestos-refractory castable in the field allegedly produced the second-highest exposure, because the dry mix was cut open, dumped into hoppers, and aerosolized directly into the worker’s breathing zone during mixing and application.

Allied trades

BAC refractory masons worked alongside several allied crafts that share parts of the asbestos exposure history:

  • Boilermakers — cutting the furnace shell and reinstalling structural steel during rebuilds
  • Heat & Frost Insulators — installing thermal insulation on the cold-face shell after the refractory lining was complete
  • Pipefitters / Steamfitters — installing burner piping, cooling water lines, and process piping to the furnace
  • Ironworkers — installing anchor systems and structural steel for the refractory
  • Millwrights — installing the mechanical equipment the refractory lined

The refractory-mason branch of BAC allegedly has a documented mesothelioma incidence well above the general-population baseline, driven by daily contact with asbestos-bonded brick, asbestos-refractory castable and gunning-mix dust, and asbestos-refractory ceramic fiber during cutting and installation.

Today

Asbestos has been substantially removed from refractory formulations since the late 1970s and early 1980s, replaced by non-asbestos ceramic fibers, alkaline earth silicate wools, and re-engineered castables. Refractory masons who entered the trade in the mid-1980s or later worked through a substantially safer materials regime. But the disease tail of the asbestos era continues. Refractory masons who entered the trade in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s — now in their 60s, 70s, and 80s — are the population now being diagnosed with mesothelioma and other asbestos-related diseases at the highest rates.

This site exists to document that history and, where applicable, to help affected BAC members and families navigate the claims process under the asbestos bankruptcy trusts and state-specific litigation frameworks that compensate workers and survivors of asbestos exposure.

Free, confidential case evaluation: Speak with O’Brien Law Firm — (314) 237-3332

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